“We are going to keep pressing our case, which is we believe that the law that they are considering would put Georgia on a precarious trajectory. It would jeopardize Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic path and undermine the U.S.-Georgia relationship, and we will continue to make that clear, and they will make their own decisions,” said the United States State Department spokesperson at the briefing held on May 6 regarding the Russian Law of the ruling Georgian Dream.
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When asked whether the US is considering any action against Bidzina Ivanishvili and Georgian Dream MPs, Matthew Miller said that it is not the State Department's practice to announce anything in advance. "I’m just not going to make any sanctions announcements, whether that relates to what we might do or what we are considering,” Miller noted.
The State Department representative was also asked why it is normal for the US to have a law on Foreign Agents, but not for Georgia or Russia, to which Matthew Miller answered:
“So the difference is in the nature of those laws. When you see the United States Foreign Agents Registration Act, it is to people who are acting on behalf of a foreign government, not people who are doing legitimate non government organization work, who are doing humanitarian work, who are doing civil society work. It’s a very different type of thing. I’ve seen those false equivalencies drawn in the past. And when you look at the text of the proposal in Georgia and the text of the proposal that has been passed due to Kremlin influence in other countries, they are very different than the type of law that we have on the books here in the United States.”
On April 3, 2024, Georgian Dream once again initiated the Russian Law on so-called Foreign Agents in parliament, which had been withdrawn a year ago as a result of thousands of protests, with a promise to never accept it again. The Russian Law requires independent media and non-governmental organizations that are supported by grants from international funds and cannot be controlled by the government or related groups to register as foreign agents. Despite public protests and international appeals, Georgian Dream did not withdraw the draft law from parliament, and it has already passed in two readings.
